February's Birthday Cake

Once a month, I make the office birthday cake. It is a job I love - I get to pick my own designs and practice a cake! This month (being Valentine's and all) I went with a traditional box of chocolates. This cake was inspired by another blog I follow as her Valentine cake for 2009.

The whole thing is cake! The box, the chocolates - all of it! I made a red velvet cake (recipe courtesy of a co-worker) and covered it in red fondant. I have discovered Satin Ice fondant - which has a very good flavor and rolls out very nice! I purchased it online in red and black (and a chocolate one too!) since coloring fondant these colors can be very difficult. Mostly, I would end up with pink or grey!

The chocolates themselves are actually cake balls - made from scraps of cake that I have left over from other cakes I made. Once I level or sculpt a cake, I throw the scraps into a ziploc freezer bag until I have enough to make cake balls. The cake balls pictured here are chocolate and red velvet covered in melted chocolate. I piped melted chocolate on some of them, topped some with nuts and others with sugar. To make it look realistic I purchased some candy foil wrappers and placed them on the box.

I figured I had done a great job when a co-worker went to the break room, thinking someone had brought a box of chocolates to work to share, helped herself. She confessed to me - Oh my gosh! I just ate the birthday cake! I thought i was candy until I ate it! And - those cake balls are the best! :-)

I sent leftover cake balls to work with Jim - evidently they were a hit there as well.

Forrest is right - "Life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get" - you might even get cake balls!

Done with physical therapy!

Finally, finally, finally! Hoping that my back issues stay away and that I really don't/won't have to go back for surgery or PT! That being said - my PT (really manual therapist) is THE BEST! I have been going to them for over a year now - first with a shoulder issue and then my back. It will be very strange not to see them every Tuesday and Thursday.

Because they are the best - at least in my "book" - I wanted to do a special thank you for them. So what do I do? I make cakes, ergo a book cake. Because it is a fairy tale come true to be doing so much better.... by the way - in case you were wondering - the "Princess" is me! :-)

Smash cake!

My physical therapist's son is 1 year old today! I wanted to surprise his mom and dad with a little smash cake for him - especially since they were going to wait until next month to celebrate it with his grandparents & various other family members in Arizona. You only turn 1 once! You GOTTA have a smash cake for your birthday!

Baby A's first word was "car" - so.....



I couldn't find the chunky looking toddler car toys that I remember from when my kids were toddlers, so I drew one out as best as I could remember - remember I never said I could draw! I rolled out the red fondant and put the cutout of my car on it and cut that out. The clouds are made from five petal flower cutters and the wheels are circle cutters. The cake itself is a two layer torted chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream. Just the right consistency to make a wonderful mess for a 1 year old!

Baby A's dad and mom really liked the cake and were totally surprised! Tonight - let them eat cake!

"Final"ly done!

With my cake final coming up, I had to choose one of the cakes out of our instruction book to replicate. Well - they are all beautiful and I had a difficult time choosing. Brilliant inspiration struck! Take the book to work and let THEM pick it out! So - the winner - but by a very close margin was:

I have to say - I think its one of the best fondant jobs I've done. This one just turned out so smooth!

I did discover that you CAN put the petal dust on the flowers after they are secured to the cake, but I won't next time - I worried the whole time I was doing it that I would spill the dust or that the sparkle would get where I didn't want it!

Over the weekend - Jim purchased for me a Lindy Smith book. It has 15 different cakes, complete with instructions and pictures. I'm looking forward to trying one or all of them in the very near future! But first - - - the office Valentine cake!

Happy Caking!